Agartala: The opposition Congress has decided to file a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe into alleged police inaction over investigation into the spurious drug procurement and distribution issue of the Tripura health department.
Talking to the media here on Thursday Leader of Opposition Sudip Roy Barman alleged that five days after registering an FIR by Congress spokesperson against Health Minister Tapan Chakraborty and nine top officials, including additional chief secretary KV Satyanarayana, police tagged the complaint with the health director’s FIR lodged against Himachal Pradesh based Vardhaman Pharma.
He, however, pointed out that the procurement of substandard life-saving drugs had been purchased by the health department for the past few years though the license of the pharmaceutical company expired in 2009.
At the beginning of the year the department had ordered several important medicines, worth about Rs one crore, to the company through restricted tender and on March 22, the department first noticed the discrepancy in the consignment of medicines sent to central medical store.
In April, the laboratory testing report had confirmed that a few medicines were spurious, Roy Barman said, adding that despite knowing about sub-standard medicines and illegal functioning of the company, the administration did not take any action.
Without taking action on the irregularities the health minister attempted to protect the erring officials by issuing a statement through Deputy Drug Controller Partha Sarathi Das that spurious drugs did not affect anybody, he alleged. (UNI)